


Self Esteem

by BookofOdym



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Murder, High School, M/M, Necrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-23 14:27:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20893574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofOdym/pseuds/BookofOdym
Summary: A tale of Hal Jordan and his high school boyfriend.





	Self Esteem

Hal slumped down on his desk, closing his eyes, and letting the cold metal sooth his pounding head, he always fell asleep during homeroom, there was never any reason to stay awake during homeroom, not when he was still tired from the night before. He often spent the nights alone, with a few cans of beer, in the dark park across from his house, and homeroom was the best time to make up for all the sleep he’d lost. Three students had joined Hal’s class in the last year and a half, and he was none the wiser, although sometimes he would get quite a shock when he looked up from his work and didn’t recognize any of the people sitting around him.

Today though, his friend was chattering away about something inane, refusing to let Hal get the sleep that he needed. “Did you see her, though?” Todd asked in a loud enough voice that some of the girls on the surrounding tables glared at them. He was referring to the cute blond girl in another class that he had a crush on. “Her skirt barely came down to her thighs.”

“Oh,” Hal said in response, deliberately not voicing the first of the questions that popped into his head, the one about not thinking that they made skirts that short, and whether or not Todd was actually thinking of a belt or a sash or something along those lines. “Do you think it’ll be a dress code violation, then?”

“Not the point, Hal!” Todd snapped, sounding annoyed, he proceeded to launch into a long-winded monologue about finally asking her out, and Hal groaned, finally realizing that he really wasn’t going to end up getting any more sleep that morning. It was at that moment that the door swung open.

Hal found his eyes instantly drawn to the boy who walked into the room in the next few moments, he wasn’t quite sure why, given that he was reasonably sure he wasn’t into dudes, and even if he was, this strange boy was somewhat plain, with stringy black hair, and skin that was so pale it looked like it had never ever seen the sun, even though they lived in California.

The boy’s eyes met his across the room, and it must have been instantly apparent that Hal was staring because he gave Hal an awkward smile in response. Hal wanted to die. His eyes shot down to the table immediately. If he just didn’t look at the boy again, then it could just have been their eyes meeting accidentally as he looked into the middle distance, right?

He was still staring at the table when someone pulled out the chair on the left side of him and sat down next to him.

He froze, uncertain as to what to do, he knew that the transfer student had probably only sat next to him in the first place because the teacher had pointed in his direction, but this was still an incredibly uncomfortable situation. If Hal had been able to sleep in class, this would never have happened.

If he had been expecting the boy to introduce himself, he was sorely disappointed, because he remained quiet for the rest of the class, eyes boring into the side of Hal’s head.

* * *

Yet again, there were eyes on him. Ever since their eyes had first met in that classroom, so for about the last three days, Hal would periodically feel William Hand looking in his direction. Sure that the other boy was keeping tabs on him, waiting for him to screw up and give clues about his attraction, Hal kept looking pointedly in the opposite direction. Nothing to see here was the vibe that he wanted to give off. No gay in the vicinity.

Unfortunately, though, other people were starting to notice William watching him.

Mike and Dante, two casual friends of Hal’s, people that he had lunch with really, had definitely noticed and didn’t even bother to hide the way that they glared at the new transfer student.

“Want me to tell him off?” Mike had asked him one day, leaning in conspiratorially.

Hal couldn’t exactly say, no, actually, he had looked first, so he was the one who started it, at least not without turning that look of hatred that lurked behind his friend’s eyes onto himself. Instead, he said: “Tell him off for what? He hasn’t done anything.”

“He’s stalking you, I’d call that doing something.”

Hal didn’t think that he would ever trust Mike’s opinion of what constituted stalking, mostly because he remembered how a girl (who most of the guys in his grade had considered ugly, even though Hal couldn’t see it himself) had a crush on Mike, who, when he found out, had accused her of stalking him rallied a bunch of guys into following her home every day, to the point that the girl, now in high school, barely ever looked up from her workbook long enough to talk to anyone.

Hal wasn’t really sure why he still hung out with Mike, probably a holdout from being friends as kids, mixed with being on the same sports team.

“I’m a big boy, Michael, I can deal with my own damn problems my own damn self.” He said, standing up and throwing his paper bag in the trash, “and if I find out you’ve been trying to deal with them for me, I’m going to be pissed.”

He went through the rest of the day, not talking to any of his friends. He didn’t want to talk to them at the moment, and they made no effort to speak with him. Mike didn’t like being spoken to with such a lack of respect, he thought, never had, but he would be back to normal by the next day.

So, he walked home alone, through the quiet back streets of Coast City. Hal thought that one day he would like to live in a beachside house, where he could have a collection of surfboards stacked up on the side, probably a little outside town so that he could more easily get to his job as a pilot (he still had to keep his desire to become a pilot secret).

All of that was just a dream though, although he did live outside town right now, he had to walk for twenty minutes into the dusty desert to get to his home. Even the school bus wouldn’t drive out that far.

The road home was oddly empty on that day, typically about five or six vehicles passed him on his way home, but on that day, for the first time, nothing at all had zoomed past him. The sun was beginning to set, and for anyone else, the scene would probably feel eerie, but Hal didn’t really get scared. It had been a club day, so even though he usually met up with Jim and walked home with him, that evening, his younger brother had probably been at home for at least half an hour.

A gust of wind blew across the desert, sending dust flying into Hal’s eyes, and he stopped suddenly to rub at them with his elbow. The sound of footsteps stumbled to a halt behind him. That was weird, partly because no one else ever walked along this road, but also because ordinarily, a person who was just walking along behind you would merely overtake you when you stopped, for them to stop as well, meant that they wanted to stay behind you.

It meant that they were following you.

What was more, he hadn’t had any indication that someone was following him the entire way home, whoever it was, was matching their steps perfectly with his and had only stumbled when he suddenly stopped walking. They clearly didn’t want him to know they were there, and someone who was following you, who didn’t want you to know they were there? Well, they could only have bad intentions.

With the bravado of a boy who had spent at least three weeks training as a boxer, Hal whirled around to face his pursuer.

It was the boy from class.

The sight of him standing there, stock-still, bathed in the semi-darkness of the evening, was enough to send a shiver down even Hal’s spine. He was so plain, so unassuming, the rest of the time, but his stare was blank, Hal couldn’t see what was going on behind those limpid blue eyes. A thought sprung to mind, about what that the strange boy might be planning to do to him, and that thought alone almost made the brunet take off running home. The only thing that kept him in place was the knowledge that doing so would endanger his family.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, wishing desperately that he a knife or a gun on him. Even a rock resting in the sand next to him would do. “Why are you following me?”

He sounded a lot braver than he felt.

Silence spread out between them that felt like it lasted an eternity. Finally, the boy spoke. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

That was weird actually, Hal thought because if the new transfer student really wanted to talk to him, it would be easier (and far less creepy) to just talk to him at school. Objectively speaking, people normally wouldn’t follow you into sparsely populated areas if they wanted to talk. There was, however, no way of getting out of it, they were alone in the middle of nowhere, and even if he sprinted, he was still a long way off from home.

Spotting a rock laying in the sand to his left, he took the opportunity to dive across the road so that he could grab it. When he held it up to his shoulder, the threat was implicit. “Go on then. Talk.”

Despite the fact that he was being threatened with physical violence, the smile never left the transfer student’s face. Hal watched as he flicked his tongue over his lips. “I saw you watching me,” he explained.

Anticipating that he was about to be the victim of a homophobic assault, Hal considered just pitching the rock at the other boy’s head and running for it. Unfortunately, when the time came for him to actually chuck the rock, he missed, and it turned out that running from someone who you hadn’t just knocked out meant you actually had to be fast, so he hadn’t gotten that far before the other boy had tackled him to the ground.

“I want you,” the other boy said, breathing heavily in his ear, which didn’t precisely lessen Hal’s present desire to elbow him in the balls, an aim that was only stopped by the fact that he couldn’t bend his arm far enough.

“Let me go,” he said, finally, and thankfully the other boy did let him up. Hal gingerly got to his feet, deep in thought, because if this was the kind of situation he thought it was, he could probably come up with some sort of arrangement. Blowjobs in the locker room after school. Handjobs instead of doing homework. He’d always expected to end up in this kind of situation at some point in his life. He’d spent a long time planning for it. “Well, okay. I have an idea, but your wallet might not be big enough to handle it.”

A long moment of silence spread between the two of them, one of common confusion, it was safe to say that neither of these two boys was entirely normal, and both of them contributed to the situation that was to come.

“I was trying to ask you out,” the black-haired boy said, although this was a lie, he held a weapon in his back pocket, a long thin knife, it had taken a long time for him to acquire a stiletto blade, as no one would sell one to a boy his age, and in the end he had needed to forge one himself. His aim in following the brunet had been, simply, to catch up to him in an isolated area, slide the blade into his back, and do what he wanted to the corpse.

Being offered sex so quickly was a surprise, but he wasn’t going to pay for it. Especially not if his partner was still alive.

He’d needed an out, and fast, so he’d said the first thing that came to mind. That he was searching for a romantic relationship. The very thought was almost enough to make him gag, but, it was a means to an end, and he would have many more opportunities to get close to the other boy if they were in a relationship.

“Oh,” Hal bit his lip in response to the admission, he’d probably severely overreacted in that case and was lucky that he hadn’t ended up driving the boy away. He mumbled out a quick apology, but the other boy didn’t seem particularly upset about his reaction. “In that case, I’d be glad to.”

It wasn’t how being asked out in movies and books went, but hey, Hal would take it.

* * *

Nine in the morning on a Saturday was, by all accounts, a terrible time to go to the cinema, at least for most people. William thought that there were some okay parts, namely the number of annoying children around. Well, all children were annoying, so he really meant that the lack of children, in general, was a good point. If you did your research and knew which movies to watch, then you could avoid the adult patrons too, not that there were many adult patrons at that time, very few people would roll out of bed early enough to do so.

William considered sharing an auditorium with other people while watching a movie to be one of the worst experiences imaginable. People were loud, they talked over all of the best scenes in the film, they would stand up at the most inopportune times so that they could go to the bathroom, and the smell from their popcorn made William nauseous. People eating hotdogs were even worse.

What all of this meant was that when William’s new boyfriend suggested that a good place for a first date would be the local cinema, William had needed to think for a moment about what he should do. Healthy couples went on dates, dates where they did things together, so his suggestion that they go to lovers lane at night wouldn’t go down well, he’d need to work up to that. What he did know was that he wanted to be along with the other boy, somewhere dark without anyone else around would be perfect.

Luckily for him, he already knew that the local cinema tended to have old movies on early in the morning, at least at the weekend, and a quick search of the schedule provided a perfect day. On the day that he chose, the cinema was showing the Original Halloween movie, it was apparently part of the ‘Spooktacular October Celebration.’ This fact brought a rare genuine smile out of William because, although William generally preferred war movies, he found the irony to be suitably fitting.

His mother had given him a wide smile when he told her that he was going on a date that weekend. She was probably hopeful that the black sheep of the family had finally attained some semblance of normality, that all the horrible treatments that she had made him go through might finally have paid off. William refrained from telling her that the date was with another guy. To his mother, an interest in people of the same gender was just as bad as one in corpses. She would be just as horrified knowing he was dating Hal as she would be if she knew what William was planning to do to him.

“You’ve never gone surfing?!” Hal asked in horror one morning, as they were walking through the city together, searching for a food stand so that they could buy hotdogs for breakfast. Hotdogs for breakfast was one of Hal’s favorite new discoveries, and five or six of them could keep him going for the entire day.

“N-no,” William stuttered in response, and Hal thought, not for the first time, that he was actually kind of adorable, “when I was younger, I went swimming in the ocean, and a surfer ran into my head. I’ve always been too afraid to try it by myself.”

Hal stared up at the sky, deep in thought, he didn’t really have any better ideas for a date. He just knew that you couldn’t take a guy on the same kinds of dates that you would take a girl on. Anything cute was out for one, you couldn’t buy a guy flowers, and sweet things were out as well, Hal didn’t know many guys with a sweet tooth, and you absolutely could not take a guy shopping. Since he didn’t have money, he couldn’t take William out for a romantic dinner either. So, he was left dredging his brain for any creativity. For guys… well, he thought that he should go with the sports angle: football games, baseball games, surfing… but William was more introverted than most of the guys that Hal knew, he was smart and interested in biology. He seemed to be aiming for a job as a coroner. But Hal didn’t know any events for intelligent people.

Maybe William would be interested in the aerospace museum.

It was only after he had been thinking for several minutes that he realized that the other boy had given him an opening in regards to his surfing idea. ‘I’ve always been too afraid to try it by myself,’ he had said.

Uncertain, Hal reached across so that he could lace their fingers together. “What if you tried surfing with me?”

To his surprise, William gave a snort of laughter. “Not quick on the uptake, are you?” He asked.

Hal grumbled to himself when he said that, because he felt that was actually kind of rude, just because he had focused on the wrong part of the sentence didn’t mean he was stupid.

Still grumbling, Hal grabbed hold of William’s hand and dragged him in the direction of the beach, confidently at first, but later just trying not to flush at the realization that the ocean was actually quite a few blocks away, and that it would take at least a quarter of an hour for them to get there. What that meant was that that would be how long he would be holding the other boy’s hand, and that felt way more intimate than it should. “If you’re going to be a jerk about it, you’re not gonna get a reward afterward.” It took him far too long to realize the hidden meaning behind those words, but William picked up on them instantly.

“I’m going to get a reward?” He asked, and Hal could hear the smirk dripping from every syllable in that sentence.

* * *

Hal was woken up the next morning by the sound of his name being shouted by someone downstairs. He thought about it for a second, blinked his eyes, and deciding that it was Jack, closed his eyes, and rolled over again. Hal rarely answered when Jack was shouting for him, it tended to mean that his brother was upset about something, and that could be anything from Hal stealing his pudding, to Hal sneaking out of the house at midnight.

No one had the energy to deal with Jack’s mood swings, was the point.

“Hal!” Jack yelled again. It sounded like he was coming up the stairs. “Come and deal with your friend!”

That was weird, none of Hal’s school friends would bother coming to his house before noon on the weekend, and he’d had a specific conversation with William about how coming to his home at all was undoubtedly a bad idea. As he wracked his brain for any sense of who it might be, he went through countless acquaintances, but none of them seemed particularly likely.

“Hal!” Drifted up towards him again, and reluctantly, he headed downstairs.

The boy standing at the door wasn’t someone who he’d ever seen before. Hal raised his eyebrow at him.

“Okay, okay,” the boy said, playing with the strings of his purple hoodie, “I lied to your brother to speak to you, now can you come outside?”

Ordinarily, it might be considered stupid to go for a walk with someone who you’d never met before. You never knew what could happen. But Hal didn’t really have anything else going on that day, and the risk might liven up what was looking to be a boring weekend, so he headed upstairs, changing into his everyday clothes, and he was out of the house within minutes, not even bothering to stop and tell his brother that he was leaving the house.

The two boys walked in silence for a moment, before his new acquaintance spoke. “I’m Neal Emerson,” he said, which explained precisely nothing about why they were out here.

“I’m guessing,” Hal said lightly, putting his arms behind his head and leaning back on them like they were a pillow, “that you went to a lot of effort to find me, for whatever reason you wanted to talk, so you probably already know my name, so I don’t need to waste time on that.”

“It would be polite.”

“Why did you want to talk to me?” Hal pressed.

The other boy, Neal, bit his lip, clearly trying to avoid voicing his concerns. “I heard that you were… friends William Hand,” Neal said finally, after a few moments of awkward silence, which was one of the worst things he could possibly have said at that moment. Hal bristled slightly at the long pause before the word ‘friends.’ So that was the problem then, probably this guy was a friend of William’s who had an issue with the whole boyfriend thing. It wasn’t like Hal wasn’t expecting something like that.

“I’d say a little more than just friends,” Hal retorted, distaste dripping into his voice.

He could swear that he saw the other boy roll his eyes in response. “Trust me when I say that that is nowhere near being my main problem with this whole situation.” There was another long pause. “Did William tell you that he’d spent time in a psych ward?”

William actually hadn’t, but Hal didn’t necessarily think that was something that he had the right to know about at this point in a relationship. He figured that it must have been pretty understandable for someone to keep the fact that they had Schizophrenia or OCD or suicidal urges (Hal had very little idea of what was actually treated in a psych ward) a secret from new people, at least until you had a better idea of how they would respond. He did, however, have a momentary bubble of terror at the idea that William might have been in that situation because he had tried to commit suicide.

He didn’t think that it was actually a good idea to actually say that, though, so he lied about it instead. “Yes, actually, he has.”

“Did he tell you why?”

Luckily, Hal didn’t need to continue his life of lies, because, at that moment, a cough came from behind them. Both boys turned around, only to see a figure clad entirely in black standing behind them, an oversized black hoodie covered his face. Only one person would wear that much black (or at least Hal hoped that was the case, now that he thought about it, he knew that he was probably wrong). “What are you doing here?” William asked the strange boy, coldly. “You live over an hour away.”

Neal shrugged. “Just wanted to meet your new boyfriend. Don’t worry. I’m leaving.”

* * *

The path to the old farmhouse was dark by the time they arrived, and Hal pulled his jacket tighter around him, it was cold this far out of town at night, and William was standing in front of him, tapping his foot impatiently. There was no chance of his boyfriend coming back and enveloping him in his arms again.

“Hurry up!” He said snappishly, presumably wanting to get inside, where at least they would be shielded from the wind by the walls, even if they were paper thin.

Hal rushed to keep up, keeping the jacket held tightly around him. “Sorry about that,” he breathed, his breath turning to steam as he spoke.

Together they started up the dark path, William leading the way with his flashlight. Hal didn’t actually think that the house was haunted, he was a man of science, he didn’t believe in ghosts. But if horror movies were supposed to help a new relationship, spending the night surrounded in a creepy atmosphere would undoubtedly be even better for it.

Hal ran to catch up, taking William’s hand in his own, it was warm, and for some stupid reason, he found his cheeks heating up. Given that they’d already kissed, it was ridiculous to get butterflies in his stomach over holding hands, wasn’t it?

“You go in first,” William said as they reached the doorway, long ago it had been torn off his hinges, either by the wind or by one of the countless teenagers who spent the night within its walls. William still sounded angrier than he normally did, and Hal wondered if it was because he was scared. It would be cute if it was because he was scared.

A sudden sharp pain shot up Hal’s side, and he gasped in shock, a quick glance down told him that a knife had been shoved into him. William hummed, running his tongue across Hal’s neck.

“W-what are-?” Hal tried to say, but it was weak, he needed to get away, but he couldn’t force his legs to move.

“I’d say sorry,” the other boy said, trailing his fingers through the red liquid that was escaping from the wound, “but I have a feeling that you wanted to do this tonight anyway. You slut.”

Hal wasn’t really sure what was going on, somehow, being a slut and being stabbed were connected, but his brain was too fuzzy to make the connection. Maybe he had done something wrong, he probably had. Perhaps he was just unloveable if someone he cared about would do this to him. Maybe it would be better for the world if he died here, where people would never find him.

His body moved, instincts overruling his brain, and he slammed an elbow into William’s nose. There was a sickening crunch. The pale boy doubled over, holding his nose, trying to stop the blood gushing out of it, and Hal moved without thinking again, charging out of the open doorway.

His feet pounded on the gravel path, his breath was running ragged, he’d only just entered the woods when he heard a shout from behind him. Heart pounded in his chest, he somehow managed to run even faster. Selfish thoughts ran through his head, like how he didn’t want to die before he got to fly his first plane. Jack would be furious about that, if he knew that even when he was about to die, Hal still didn’t think about his family.

The footsteps behind him got closer and closer with every passing moment, if this had been a chase taking place, for instance, in the water, Hal, with his years of training as a swimmer, would have been able to lose his pursuer pretty quickly, but as it was, he was rapidly losing ground. When William had told him that he had been a member of the track team before he switched schools, he had been pretty surprised by the revelation, after all, the dour boy didn’t really seem like the type. It was only at that moment that Hal considered the idea that the reason that he trained to be faster, was that he wanted to be able to more easily chase people down.

If he wouldn’t be able to escape by running, then there was only one possible option, Hal sharply turned right, running into the treeline, he hated to do it, he preferred to face his problems head-on, but as soon as he was out of sight, he ducked behind a tree, allowing himself to slide down it, until he was seated on the ground. Actually, thinking about it, was that good tactically speaking? It meant that he wouldn’t be able to run if he needed to.

He heard William swear, clattering through the woods behind him, and Hal clamped both of his hands over his mouth, the last thing that he wanted in this situation for the sound of his labored breathing to give him away.

Suddenly, a pale hand landed on the tree he was hiding behind, about a meter above his head, and Hal barely stifled a shout. He shrunk in on himself, desperately hoping that his sharp intake of breath hadn’t been heard.

Luckily, William removed his hand from the tree, shuffling further into the woods. It took a long time before Hal could bring himself to move.

Shakily, when he thought that William had been gone for long enough, he brought himself to his feet and started making his way through the woods. It was slow going because he still had a knife lodged in his side, the only thing that kept him from taking it out was the vague notion that doing so would lead to bad times for him. Once, he heard a twig snap behind him, and he froze, turning his head slowly to the side, only to see a fox standing there. Hal breathed a sigh of relief and resumed his quest towards the main road.

Finally, after he had been walking for what felt like hours, he saw a red car passing in front of him. With a sob of relief, Hal collapsed on the side of the road.


End file.
